In this post i will go over upgrading my 8.x SSC appliance to 8.9. As a pre requirement we do need to have vRSLCM (vRealize Lifecycle Manager) upgraded to 8.8.2. Instructions can be found here. The upgrade doesn’t include the required Product support pack. Instructions on how to get the latest support pack can be found here.

To get started we can go to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> Binary Mapping. (If you haven’t added your My VMware credentials you will need to do that first by going to vRealize Lifecycle Manager -> Lifecycle Operations -> Settings -> My VMware)

The image shows the “Settings” page with options like System Details, Logs, System Patches, and others.

Click on Add Binaries under Product Binaries

Binary Mapping page shows options to add and delete unsupported binaries for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.

Select My VMware and click on Discover

Add Product Binary step shows VMware option selected; click Discover.

We can see a list of binaries that have been discovered. We can select what we need and click on Add

In the vRSLCM upgrade wizard, select vRealize Automation SaltStack Config 8.9.0 and click Add.

This will create a request and start downloading the package. To view the progress we can click on the Click Here hyperlink

Binary mapping request submitted; click to check status.

Click on the in Progress button to view the details

Requests page showing upgrade in progress for VMware Product Binary.

We now have to wait for the download to complete

Request details show download in progress, stage 1, 468ms.

After the download is complete we can go to Environments -> View Details on the environment that includes SSC

Corp Local environment shows disabled health check in vRSLCM.

Click on Upgrade

UI shows upgrade option for vRealize Automation SaltStack Config to 8.8.1.

An Inventory sync is recommended if the environment has changed since LCM performed the last sync. We trigger the sync from the UI or click on Proceed to continue

Upgrade wizard step: “Proceed to Upgrade” with sync recommendation and buttons.

Select product Version 8.8.2 and click Next. We can also review the compatibility matrix to make sure the environment is compatible.

Upgrading vRealize Automation SaltStack Config to 8.9.0 using vRSLCM wizard.

We can automatically create and delete a snapshot part of the upgrade process

Wizard step: Snapshot, checkbox for taking product snapshot, next button.

Run the Precheck to make sure there are no errors

Precheck step for upgrading SSC to 8.9; click RUN PRECHECK to validate data.

Once the check is complete, click on Next. Review the upgrade details and click on Next. We are taken to the progress screen where we can follow the progress.

Progress screen shows upgrade details for vRealize Automation SaltStack Config, stage 1 in progress.

The system will get rebooted and once its back up we will be on 8.9

Here are a few additional blogs that might be useful post upgrade:

Error Code: LCMVSSC10018

SSC 8.8 sseapi_rpc_queue: could not connect to SSE server

SSC 8.8 urllib3 (1.25.11) or chardet (4.0.0) doesn’t match a supported version

Authentication failed: no Authorization header